Death networking: the latest e-trend

[Up2Late]

Source: The Independent (U.K.)

Death networking: the latest e-trend

By Emily Dugan
Published: 25 June 2007

Memorial websites for the dead are emerging as a new way of making social contact, rivalling Facebook and MySpace. Initially intended to bear tributes to the deceased, these sites are becoming popular meeting places for strangers in a phenomenon known as death networking.

Gone Too Soon was the first British website to take up on the American phenomenon. But what started as a collection of memorials for recently deceased friends has quickly grown into a new social forum.

The website has grown rapidly since it was set up by entrepreneur Terry George in November 2005. In just over a year, it has gone from having some 500 memorials to more than 10,000, attracting roughly 55,000 visits a day, and is already changing the way its users cope with grief.

And this truly is communal grief. From mothers who have lost babies in childbirth, to those whose relatives have died through suicide, virtual groups are springing up on the site to help the bereaved get in touch with each other. About 100 new memorials are created on Gone Too Soon every day, says site manager Nicola Davis.

Read more: http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2705364.ece

---

This doesn't surprise me at all.

I've been searching for lost friends a lot this year, since my Best Friend died suddenly last July by Tylenol O.D. (probable suicide, which he chose over a long, slow death from AIDS) and I have to say, this could be a very good thing.

With as spread out as we all are now, finding out if an old friend is dead or alive is very difficult these days.

And with diseases like AIDS in the world, something that can take 5 to 25 years to kill you, not having at least a central data base to find out if anyone you've been with has died of AIDS is really a scary thing.

BTW, it turned out that my friend of 32 years lived for 19 years with HIV/AIDS without telling me or anyone outside of his family, which is something that still amazes me.

[Miss Chybil]

1. The website is an interesting phenomenon and totally understandable.

I'm sure it helps a lot of people.

[Up2Late]

2. I think so too. I've been thinking about doing some sort of on-line memorial...

...for my friend who died in July and maybe one for my other friend who died in 2001 also.

I was looking at a page they made at <http://intervention.org/dead.htm> that remembered the recovering drug addicts they helped and tried to help at Intervention Organization, a Washington D.C. based organization that says at the website:

"The Intervention Organization
Psychotherapy ~ Interventions ~ ART ~ Advocate
~ Social Documentary Photography
23 Years Helping Addicts to Get Clean, Find Recovery, and Remain Clean
Help Today is a Call Away - [phone]"

Some of the stories there are very sad, but the main web page has some really good Photography too.

[Up2Late]

3. kick n/t

:kick: